Sound Blaster X-Fi
Encyclopedia
Sound card
A sound card is an internal computer expansion card that facilitates the input and output of audio signals to and from a computer under control of computer programs. The term sound card is also applied to external audio interfaces that use software to generate sound, as opposed to using hardware...
s in Creative Labs' Sound Blaster
Sound Blaster
The Sound Blaster family of sound cards was the de facto standard for consumer audio on the IBM PC compatible system platform, until the widespread transition to Microsoft Windows 95, which standardized the programming interface at application level , and the evolution in PC design led to onboard...
series.
History
The series was launched in August 2005 as a lineup of PCIPeripheral Component Interconnect
Conventional PCI is a computer bus for attaching hardware devices in a computer...
sound cards, served as the introduction for their X-Fi
X-Fi (audio chip)
X-Fi is the commercial name for Creative Labs' E-MU 20K1 and E-MU 20K2 audio chips. The 20K1 chip was launched in August 2005, and ever since it has been used in a variety of audio solutions from Creative Labs, and more recently third-party manufacturers, such as Korean manufacturer Auzentech...
audio processing chip, with models ranging from XtremeMusic (lower end), to Platinum, Fatal1ty FPS, and Elite Pro (top of the range).
The Platinum and Fatal1ty FPS models both offer a front-panel drive-bay control unit and remote control, while the base model was supplied without any such accessories.
All but the top model claimed 109dB signal-to-noise ratio
Signal-to-noise ratio
Signal-to-noise ratio is a measure used in science and engineering that compares the level of a desired signal to the level of background noise. It is defined as the ratio of signal power to the noise power. A ratio higher than 1:1 indicates more signal than noise...
, while the Elite Pro model uses a higher-end DAC
Digital-to-analog converter
In electronics, a digital-to-analog converter is a device that converts a digital code to an analog signal . An analog-to-digital converter performs the reverse operation...
, with 116dB claimed. The bottom two models feature 2 MB standard RAM , while the top models offer 64MB of X-RAM, designed for use in games to store sound samples for improved gaming performance.
October 2006 saw a minor rebranding: the X-Fi XtremeMusic edition, which was in fact a highly capable gaming card, as it offers hardware decoding and EAX support, was replaced with the XtremeGamer model. The revised model featured half-width PCB, non-gold-plated connectors, optical out instead of the digital out and digital I/O module jack, and lacked the connector for users wishing to purchase a separate X-Fi I/O box. Functionality is otherwise the same.
The market segment occupied by the XtremeMusic was moved downwards, with the introduction of the (cheaper) 'Xtreme Audio' and 'Xtreme Audio Notebook' products, which, despite the "X-Fi" label, are the only products in the X-Fi line not using the EMU20K1 chip (CA20K1) but an older chip similar to the Audigy SE and SB Live! cards (CA0106-WBTLF) and thus lacking the hardware acceleration of 3D sound and EAX sound effects, gaming and content creation features and the I/O extensibility of all the other X-Fi models.
The other new product introduced was the X-Fi 'XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro', identical in function to the Fatal1ty FPS, but made more affordable by the unbundling of the I/O panel and remote control.
The 20K1 chip can use a significant amount of RAM
Ram
-Animals:*Ram, an uncastrated male sheep*Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela-Military:*Battering ram*Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another...
to store sound effects for faster and improved processing, just like the previous E-mu 10K-series and E-mu 8000. This feature, dubbed X-RAM by Creative and found on the higher-end models in the X-Fi line (the Elite Pro, Fatal1ty and XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro Series), is claimed to offer quality improvement through audio processing capability enhancement, in addition to further reduction in host system CPU overhead.
In 2007 Consumer Electronics Show
Consumer Electronics Show
The International Consumer Electronics Show is a major technology-related trade show held each January in the Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. Not open to the public, the Consumer Electronics Association-sponsored show typically hosts previews of products and new...
, Creative Technology unveiled PCI Express
PCI Express
PCI Express , officially abbreviated as PCIe, is a computer expansion card standard designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X, and AGP bus standards...
x1 and ExpressCard
ExpressCard
ExpressCard is an interface to allow peripheral devices to be connected to a computer, usually a laptop computer. Formerly called NEWCARD, the ExpressCard standard specifies the design of slots built into the computer and of cards which can be inserted into ExpressCard slots. The cards contain...
/54 versions of Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio.
X-Fi branded products
In addition to PCI and PCIe internal sound cards, Creative also released an external USB-based solution (named X-Mod) in November 2006 which is listed in the same category as the rest of the X-Fi lineup, but is only a stereo device, marketed to improve music playing from laptop computers, and with lower specifications of the internal offerings.Other external products that use X-Fi name include USB-based Sound Blaster X-Fi HD, Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 Pro, and Sound Blaster X-Fi Go! Pro.
X-Fi features
Sample rate conversion
Sample rate conversion is the process of converting a signal from one sampling rate to another, while changing the information carried by the signal as little as possible...
) engine in addition to enhanced internal sound channel routing options and greater 3D audio enhancement capabilities. A significant portion of the audio processing unit was devoted to this resampling engine. The SRC engine was far more capable than previous Creative sound card offerings, a limitation that had been a major thorn in Creative's side. Most digital audio is sampled
Sampling (signal processing)
In signal processing, sampling is the reduction of a continuous signal to a discrete signal. A common example is the conversion of a sound wave to a sequence of samples ....
at 44.1 kHz, a standard no doubt related to CD Digital Audio, while sound cards were often designed to process audio at 48 kHz. So, the 44.1 kHz audio must be resampled to 48 kHz (Creative's previous cards' DSP
Digital signal processor
A digital signal processor is a specialized microprocessor with an architecture optimized for the fast operational needs of digital signal processing.-Typical characteristics:...
s operated at 48 kHz) for the audio DSP to be able to process and affect it. A poor resampling implementation introduces artifacts into the audio which can be heard, and measured as higher intermodulation distortion, within higher frequencies (generally 16 kHz and up). X-Fi's resampling engine produces a near-lossless-quality result, far exceeding any known audio card DSP
Digital signal processor
A digital signal processor is a specialized microprocessor with an architecture optimized for the fast operational needs of digital signal processing.-Typical characteristics:...
available at the time of release. This functionality is used not only for simple audio playback, but for several other features of the card such as the "", a technology that claims to improve the clarity of digital music through digital analysis (supported by all X-Fi models, including the Xtreme Audio and X-Mod).
The Sound Blaster X-Fi presents the following features, which are usually implemented with the aid of the X-Fi DSP or in software, in the Xtreme Audio model.
Creative Labs states that the primary function of the is to "restore portions of the sound which were lost during compression". The "compression" that is meant here is not the digital file-size reduction achieved by digital audio data compression technologies like for example mp3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
. Rather, the idea is to reverse the effects of dynamic range compression, an analog technique that was and is used during the production of most 1990s and newer Audio CDs
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
(with the exception of some classical music
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
recordings) to make them sound louder at the same volume level setting, as it was found that subjectively louder CDs get more airplay and sell better. To achieve this loudness without introducing strong distortion
Distortion
A distortion is the alteration of the original shape of an object, image, sound, waveform or other form of information or representation. Distortion is usually unwanted, and often many methods are employed to minimize it in practice...
, points in the signal where the volume reaches a maximum are compressed (which means in this case: reduced in volume), then the whole signal is multiplied by a factor so that the maximum volume is reached again. After this, the music as a whole is louder than it was before, but the maximum volume points (mostly transients) are not as pronounced as they were before. Since this whole process is done before the final Audio CD is recorded, its effect is equally present in uncompressed audio files created from such a CD, in lossless compressed audio made from the CD, as well as in lossy compressed audio from that same CD. Transients are typically found in percussive sounds, in plosive consonant
Consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
s of voice recordings, and during the first few milliseconds (the so called attack phase) of non-percussive instrument sounds. All these tend to be somewhat muffled by dynamic range compression.
To undo this effect, the uses a multiband compander (compressor/expander) with dynamically adjusted compression/expansion. Its main function is to detect transients and to increase their relative volume level. As a consequence of enabling the , the signal is altered, and whether the result improves upon the input audio is purely a matter of perception and can depend on the type of audio being played.
CMSS-3D
"CMSS-3D recreates realistic surround sound from any audio source and puts you right in the center of the action, whether you are using multichannel speakers or headphones." CMSS-3D is a DSP feature that provides audio enhancement. Depending on the equipment used, CMSS-3D has 3 variants:- CMSS-3D Headphone: When the Creative Control Panel is set to Headphones, this setting creates virtual 3D positional audio via synthesized binaural cues (see Sound localizationSound localizationSound localization refers to a listener's ability to identify the location or origin of a detected sound in direction and distance. It may also refer to the methods in acoustical engineering to simulate the placement of an auditory cue in a virtual 3D space .The sound localization mechanisms of the...
and Head-related transfer functionHead-related transfer functionA head-related transfer function is a response that characterizes how an ear receives a sound from a point in space; a pair of HRTFs for two ears can be used to synthesize a binaural sound that seems to come from a particular point in space. Some consumer home entertainment products designed to...
). If the application generating the audio uses a hardware-accelerated 3D audio API (i.e. DirectSound3D or OpenAL), the input for the binaural synthesis algorithms consists of up to 128 sound sources positioned arbitrarily in 3D space. If the application instead generates multi-channel sound directly (e.g. a media player app or a game with software-based audio processing), the input for the binaural synthesis algorithms consist of the 4 to 7 positional sound sources associated with the application's selected speaker configuration.
- CMSS-3D Virtual (Stereo Xpand): When the Creative Control Panel is set to 2/2.1 or 4/4.1 speakers, this setting creates virtual 3D positional audio similar to CMSS-3DHeadphone. The difference is that this includes techniques such as crosstalk cancellation because sound from all speakers reaches BOTH ears which makes the binaural cues more complicated to synthesize. Additionally, the listener must be located in the "sweet spot" between all of the speakers for the effect to work properly. Note that this is not available (including MacroFX and ElevationFilter) when using 5.1 or more speakers. In these cases, 3D audio sources are mapped to speakers by manipulating the relative volume levels for the different speaker positions.
- CMSS-3D Surround: When the Creative Control Panel is set to 4/4.1, 5.1, 6.1, or 7.1 speakers, this setting will upmix stereo sources to multiple channels. Note that both CMSS-3DSurround and CMSS-3DVirtual can be enabled when using 4/4.1 speakers.
MacroFX
If the application uses a hardware-accelerated 3D audio API, enabling this setting will apply special filtering algorithms in order to improve localization for sound sources located very close to the listener.ElevationFilter
If the application uses a hardware-accelerated 3D audio API, enabling this setting will apply special filtering algorithms in order to improve localization for sound sources located above or below the listener.EAX effects
Environmental Audio ExtensionsEnvironmental audio extensions
The environmental audio extensions are a number of digital signal processing presets for audio, present in Creative Technology's later Sound Blaster sound cards and the Creative NOMAD/Creative ZEN product lines...
is designed to be enabled by game developers within a game to enhance the "simulated-reality" the user is experiencing; for example, the ringing of game-world swords will sound differently depending on whether the protagonist is currently in a game-world temple vault or in a game-world open field. There are also 8 built-in EAX effects which can be enabled by the user.
SVM
This is Smart Volume Management. It is a compressorAudio level compression
Dynamic range compression, also called DRC or simply compression reduces the volume of loud sounds or amplifies quiet sounds by narrowing or "compressing" an audio signal's dynamic range...
or normalize
Audio normalization
Audio normalization is the application of a constant amount of gain to an audio recording in order to bring the average or peak amplitude to a target level ....
r that tries to keep the volumes of various audio sources equal. It does alter the original recording so it may or may not be a desired option. It can be useful depending upon what audio is being played, or if two audio sources are being played at once.
GraphicEqualizer
This function divides music into ten frequency bands, which can be adjusted using the sliders.Mixer
There are multiple volume adjustments for different inputs and outputs on the system. The master volume affects all of these settings. The default and recommended value is 50% for all sources, which actually equates to a 0 dB amplification (none), while a 100% value causes a 16 dB amplification.MIDI support
As with many of Creative's previous sound cards, the X-Fi supports SoundFontSoundFont
SoundFont is a brand name that collectively refers to a file format and associated technology designed to bridge the gap between recorded and synthesized audio, especially for the purposes of computer music composition...
s. Additionally, the Audio Creation Mode of the card allows the use of EAX
Environmental audio extensions
The environmental audio extensions are a number of digital signal processing presets for audio, present in Creative Technology's later Sound Blaster sound cards and the Creative NOMAD/Creative ZEN product lines...
in MIDI playback via the use of controllers.
DTS bitstream out
This setting is the same as Dolby Digital Bitstream Out, only with DTS sound instead.Operating system support
Although Creative was slow to embrace 64bit drivers for the X-Fi lineup, most x64 architecture based operating systems are now supported. Microsoft Windows 7 includes basic driver support for many of the X-Fi series cards. Many of the X-Fi features however require the software applications provided by Creative in order to utilize the full capabilities of the hardware.- Microsoft Windows 2000 (unofficially)
- Microsoft Windows XP, Vista, 7 (32 & 64bit)
Linux support
On September 24, 2007 Creative Labs released a closed source unsupported beta driver providing Linux 64-bit OS support for the following Sound Blaster X-Fi series sound cards:- Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro
- Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum
- Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty
- Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer
- Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic
An open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
driver is available with OSS
Open Sound System
The Open Sound System is an interface for making and capturing sound in Unix or Unix-like operating systems. It is based on standard Unix devices...
v4 build 1013 and above. Datasheets were provided by Creative to enable ALSA driver development. On November 6, 2008 Creative finally released their driver under a GPL license. It supports x86 as well as x86-64 architectures and is listed in their support area.
On May 15, 2009 after some communications with Creative, SUSE
SUSE Linux distributions
SUSE Linux is a computer operating system. It is built on top of the open source Linux kernel and is distributed with system and application software from other open source projects. SUSE Linux is of German origin and mainly developed in Europe. The first version appeared in early 1994, making...
developer Takashi Iwai finally got a mergeable version of their X-Fi driver. On August 31, 2009 the driver (snd-ctxfi) was included in release of ALSA 1.0.21.
X-Fi MB
X-Fi MB is a software solution that enables basic X-Fi features on computers with integrated audio into an X-Fi device. It requires some degree of driver support from the audio hardware manufacturer. X-Fi MB is commonly bundled with motherboards and computer systems, and is comparable to an X-Fi XtremeAudio. Bundled with some Asus motherboards, the X-Fi MB is sold as X-Fi Supreme FX and is actually a standard Analog DevicesAnalog Devices
Analog Devices, Inc. , known as ADI, is an American multinational semiconductor company specializing in data conversion and signal conditioning technology, headquartered in Norwood, Massachusetts...
integrated HD audio codec paired with X-Fi MB. The X-Fi features are implemented entirely in the software. Other hardware vendors sell the X-Fi MB solution simply as Sound Blaster X-Fi Integrated Sound.
X-Fi Xtreme Audio
The entry-level model of the X-Fi series, the Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio, does not actually have the EMU20K1 chip but is a re-branded Audigy SESound Blaster Audigy
Sound Blaster Audigy is a product line of sound cards from Creative Technology. The flagship model of the Audigy family used the EMU10K2 audio DSP, an improved version of the SB-Live's EMU10K1, while the value/SE editions were built with a less-expensive audio controller...
, using the same family of chips (CA0106-WBTLF), and even the same drivers. Thus, not only is all of the X-Fi–related processing performed in software, but it also lacks basic hardware acceleration just like the SB Live! 24-bit, the Audigy SE and other budget Soundblaster models. The X-Fi Xtreme Audio does not use the same drivers as the rest of the X-Fi family, some games do not recognize it as being "X-Fi capable hardware", and the device's hardware profile resembles that of older Live! and Audigy cards.
| Card | Release | signal to noise ratio | Interface | Chip | RAM | I/O Console | I/O Drive Box | Remote control | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elite Pro | Aug '05 | 116dB | PCI | EMU20K1 | 64MB | included | - | included | additional software included |
| Fatal1ty | Aug '05 | 109dB | PCI | EMU20K1 | 64MB | optional | included | included | also known as: Fatal1ty FPS / Fatal1ty Edition / Platinum Fatal1ty Champion |
| Platinum (Discontinued) | Aug '05 | 109dB | PCI | EMU20K1 | 2 MB | optional | included | included | |
| XtremeMusic (Discontinued) | Aug '05 | 109dB | PCI | EMU20K1 | 2 MB | optional | optional | optional | still widely available as OEM Original Equipment Manufacturer An original equipment manufacturer, or OEM, manufactures products or components that are purchased by a company and retailed under that purchasing company's brand name. OEM refers to the company that originally manufactured the product. When referring to automotive parts, OEM designates a... product, may require special drivers. Retail version also still available in some countries such as the Republic of Korea. |
| Digital Audio (Discontinued) | Sep '05 | 109dB | PCI | EMU20K1 | 2 MB | optional | optional | optional | Japan-only variant of XtremeMusic with additional jack extension |
| Xtreme Audio | Oct '06 | 104dB | PCI | CA0106 | - | - | - | optional | Low profile card (half height), does not contain the EMU20K1 chipset used by the rest of the series. Is based on the same chipset as the Audigy SE, Audigy Value and SB Live! 24-bit. It also has Crystallizer and CMSS-3D. Also available for PCI Express PCI Express PCI Express , officially abbreviated as PCIe, is a computer expansion card standard designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X, and AGP bus standards... (using CA0110 chipset) and ExpressCard ExpressCard ExpressCard is an interface to allow peripheral devices to be connected to a computer, usually a laptop computer. Formerly called NEWCARD, the ExpressCard standard specifies the design of slots built into the computer and of cards which can be inserted into ExpressCard slots. The cards contain... . Note, the CA0110 does not work on Linux with ALSA 1.0.23 |
| XtremeGamer | Oct '06 | 109dB | PCI | EMU20K1 | 2 MB | - | - | optional | Low profile card (half height), replacement for XtremeMusic |
| XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro | Oct '06 | 109dB | PCI | EMU20K1 | 64MB | optional | optional | optional | Basically the Original Fatal1ty/Fatal1ty Edition/Fatal1ty FPS/Platinum Fatal1ty Champion card without the I/O drive box and remote control. |
| Titanium Fatal1ty Champion | Jun '08 | 109dB | PCIe | EMU20K2 | 64MB | - | included | optional | |
| Titanium Fatal1ty Professional | Jun '08 | 109dB | PCIe | EMU20K2 | 64MB | - | optional | optional | Basically a Titanium Fatal1ty Champion card without the I/O drive box. |
| Titanium Professional Audio | Jun '08 | 109dB | PCIe | EMU20K2 | 16MB | - | - | optional | Asia-only variant of X-Fi Titanium with minijack-to-2RCA cable and EMI shield |
| Titanium | Sep '08 | 109dB | PCIe | EMU20K2 | 16MB | - | - | optional | First X-Fi card for which Creative Labs made available a software-based implementation of Dolby Digital Live to allow for real-time encoding to DD 5.1 and subsequent output over the optical out port. DDL is also available for all other Titanium models. |
| Titanium HD | Mar '10 | 122dB | PCIe | CA20K2 | 64MB | First card with THX TruStudio PC audio technology. Top quality current output Burr-Brown Burr-Brown Corporation The Burr-Brown Corporation was a United States technology company in Tucson, Arizona, which designed, manufactured, and marketed a broad line of proprietary, standard, high-performance, analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits used in electronic signal processing... Advanced Segment PCM1794 DAC. First stereo based internal Creative PCI/PCI-E sound card with gold plated RCA out since the ISA AWE64 Gold. Creative claims it is the highest quality ever from a Creative sound card. Only available in certain markets. |
|||
- SNR is 109dB for Multi channel analog outputs and 115dB for Stereo analog outputs.
- All PCI Fatal1ty cards have "Fatal1ty" sign with two red LEDLEdLEd is a TeX/LaTeX editing software working under Microsoft Windows. It is a freeware product....
s. PCIe Fatal1ty cards have no illuminated Fatal1ty logo and only features the X-Fi logo illuminated by two white LEDs (however it does have the Fatal1ty branding on the heatsink of the card). Elite Pro card has "X-Fi" sign with two blue LEDLEdLEd is a TeX/LaTeX editing software working under Microsoft Windows. It is a freeware product....
s. - The I/O Console is an external box with analog and digital I/O audio jacks and volume control knobs. It is always bundled with the remote control
- The I/O Drive Box is an internal 5 drive with analog and digital I/O audio jacks and volume control knobs. Also bundled with the remote control.
- All Creative cards have 3x 1/8 inch jacks for analog headphone/speaker output (2 of them are 4-segment-jacks for a total of 7.1 sound output), some partner's cards such as AUDIOTRAK Prodigy 7.1e and AuzentechAuzentechAuzentech is a Korean computer hardware manufacturer, specialized in high-definition audio equipment, and in particular PC sound cards.Auzentech has its origins in March 2005, when under the company name HDA , they launched the X-Mystique 7.1, the first consumer add-in sound card to feature Dolby...
BRAVURA and Forte have separated headphone output. - All Creative cards except XtremeGamer have 1x shared 1/8 inch jack for either: Line In / Microphone / Digital Out / Digital I/O Module. The optional Digital I/O Module is an external box for handling digital IO: 1x Coax In, 1x Coax Out, 1x Optical In, 1x Optical Out. The XtremeGamer card has 1x shared 1/8 inch jack for either: Line In / Microphone / Optical Out (TOSLINK minijack). It does not support the Digital I/O Module. Some partner's cards such as AuzentechAuzentechAuzentech is a Korean computer hardware manufacturer, specialized in high-definition audio equipment, and in particular PC sound cards.Auzentech has its origins in March 2005, when under the company name HDA , they launched the X-Mystique 7.1, the first consumer add-in sound card to feature Dolby...
Prelude and Forte has separated 'Line In / Microphone' and 'Digital I/O' jack. - For the PCIe X-Fi cards, remote control support requires a USB receiver and is sold separately.
- The Titanium HD lacks analog surround sound outputs.
See also
- Creative TechnologyCreative TechnologyCreative Technology Ltd. is a Singapore-based global company headquartered in Jurong East, Singapore. The principal activities of the company and its subsidiaries consist of the design, manufacture and distribution of digitized sound and video boards, computers and related multimedia, and personal...
- Sound BlasterSound BlasterThe Sound Blaster family of sound cards was the de facto standard for consumer audio on the IBM PC compatible system platform, until the widespread transition to Microsoft Windows 95, which standardized the programming interface at application level , and the evolution in PC design led to onboard...
- Sound cardSound cardA sound card is an internal computer expansion card that facilitates the input and output of audio signals to and from a computer under control of computer programs. The term sound card is also applied to external audio interfaces that use software to generate sound, as opposed to using hardware...
- X-Fi (audio chip)X-Fi (audio chip)X-Fi is the commercial name for Creative Labs' E-MU 20K1 and E-MU 20K2 audio chips. The 20K1 chip was launched in August 2005, and ever since it has been used in a variety of audio solutions from Creative Labs, and more recently third-party manufacturers, such as Korean manufacturer Auzentech...
External links
- Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi - Creative's official Marketing and Technology page for the Sound Blaster X-Fi series